NEW YORK (Reuters) – Rich colors, refined styles and 1970s minimalism are likely trends at New York Fashion Week, U.S. department store buyers say as they look for clothes to entice wary consumers amid a fragile economic recovery.

Americans are shopping more but remain cautious, demanding value for money from retailers and designers after the worst financial crisis in decades, said buyers from top department stores Barneys, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom.

Rising commodity prices, in particular with cotton prices hitting record levels, also will likely trickle through to higher costs for clothes this year, experts said.

New York Fashion Week began on Thursday with 89 designers due to show their fall and winter collections for 2011. I

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NEW YORK – New York Fashion Week brought its cutting-edge style uptown on Thursday, opening its spring-collection previews in a new location at Lincoln Center.

Gone are the tents at Bryant Park where hundreds of designers had launched runways since 1993. I

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NEW YORK – A union representing 2,200 stagehands is threatening to put on a show of its own when Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week opens at Lincoln Center next month.

The union’s leader said Tuesday that its members may picket the twice-yearly event that draws many of the world’s top designers.

Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees has a contract that covers the various theaters at Lincoln Center. The contract does not explicitly include Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park, where Fashion Week will pitch its tents starting Sept. 9.

Union spokesman Bruce Cohen said that Local 1 has, however, a right to work Fashion Week. I

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